Tightrope
by Othellia
Summary: What if Vanessa's hospital room had terrible cell phone reception and Fisk's call to Wesley was delayed? Caught between betraying her friends and having them all murdered by Fisk, Karen finds herself becoming a double agent. (AU after episode 11)
1. Chapter 1

"And when you have no tears left to shed, then… Then we'll come for you, Miss Page."

The words rang hollow in the stark warehouse.

Karen fought to keep control of her breathing, of her tears. She would not cry before such a horrible… shit. This was all her fault. If she'd just listened to Ben. Or Matt. Or anyone really.

She kept her attention divided equally between the gun on the table and the man before her. He was regarding her with a pleasant smile. Oh, how she wished she could just reach out and shoot it off…

She knew couldn't accept his offer, if it could even be called that. She'd die before she betrayed her friends. But she'd also gone past the point of noble heroics. If she continued to put up a fight, she had no doubt that Fisk and his men would target her friends.

Three, fresh new graves. Right next to Elena's.

No, what she had to do… what she needed now… more than anything… was time.

Karen sniffed, trying to regain what little composure she had left.

She regarded Wesley with an equally cool stare. "What do I get out of it?" she asked.

Wesley's smile turned into a full on smirk as one eyebrow rose. "Get?" he said in slightly perplexed amusement. "Your life. I should've thought that part at the very least was obvious."

Karen took a deep breath, steeling herself. It was a small pathetic gambit, but it was hers.

"That's not enough," she said cooly.

"Oh, isn't it?"

"Right now the only thing you're offering me is a promise," Karen said. "And I know perfectly well how much your… kind of people keep their promises. Am I supposed to just _trust_ that you won't kill me after I do whatever you say? That you won't hurt my friends after?"

Wesley snorted.

"I suppose you don't," he said. "However - unlike certain persons present - I assure you, Miss Page, that I do in fact keep my word. I've been told, by different parties, that is both one of my best and one my worst character traits."

Karen crossed her arms, one eye still on the gun stretched out between them.

The conversation was moving into slightly steadier territory, but it still wasn't enough. She could go home, lie to her friends… but then what?

"Your plan for me won't work," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said it won't work." Karen swallowed nervously. "I'm the one leading this… I'm the one who got them all into this."

"Yes, and you'll be the one to get them all out again."

"No! Don't you see!" she exclaimed. Wesley flinched slightly at her sudden outburst, his hand twitching towards the gun. Karen bit her lip. "If I go in and suddenly do a three-sixty on them. If I… I tell them that Fisk is full of sunshine and rainbow and kisses puppies every morning when he wakes up," - she ignored the way Wesley glared at her - "they won't believe a word I say. They'll know I've been threatened or brainwashed or… something! I don't know. Point is, they won't believe me. They might even double-down their efforts."

"So. What you're trying to tell me," Wesley drawled, "is that you have no use whatsoever." He smiled.

Shit. She _knew_ it was a crappy gambit.

"No! There are other things! Other things I can be useful for. Other… _really good_ reasons why you should keep me alive!"

"Such as?"

Her head was pounding with adrenaline, her brain practically overdosing on the stuff.

Time. She need time.

"Give me three days," Karen said.

"What? So you'll be free to swan off and poison yet more innocent souls with your wild, libelous tales of corruption and scandal."

She fought down her immediate retort that it wasn't libel if it was true. She took a deep breath instead.

"Have me followed. Kill me if you see me stepping out of line," she said. "But give me three days and I promise you won't regret it."

Wesley didn't say anything in response. Karen forced herself to keep her face cool and steady.

That was it. All she had was now out there. The only thing left in her power was-

"Very well then," Wesley said. "Three days it is."

Karen started to breathe a sigh of relief, and then a phone rang.

It wasn't her ringtone, wasn't her phone. It echoed harshly in the stillness. Karen watched as Wesley turned his head slightly, his attention briefly diverted to his coat pocket.

She took her chance.

Karen lunged for the gun, her fingers reaching out to skim over the top. But Wesley was reaching too. Both of their hands collided over the metal surface and they knocked the gun off the table, sending it spinning and clattering onto the concrete floor.

They stared at each other from across the table for a split second, fear clearly marked in both of their eyes. The phone continued to ring. And then they both dove for it.

They collided again, this time an ungainly mess of shoulders and elbows. Karen felt her one hand smack the glasses off his face even as her other wrapped around the shaft of the gun. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, she managed to point the gun into his chest, curl her finger around the trigger, and pull… but the safety was on.

Startled at the lack of effect and just how close she'd come from murder, Wesley quickly managed to wrest it back away from her.

The two of them tumbled backwards, panting from exertion.

What had she done? If they safety hadn't been on… if she'd managed to pull the trigger all the way back…

And then Wesley was looming over her. She heard his thumb click the safety off and her heart began to scream. She stared at the barrel of the gun as he pointed it straight at her.

He mumbled something.

Karen blinked.

"What?" she said, not taking her eyes off the gun.

He repeated himself and she realized he wasn't mumbling. It was just her own blood coursing too loud against her ears to hear.

"I said 'See you in three days, Miss Page.'"

Wesley pocketed the gun and simply walked away, abandoning her to the solitude/sitting on the cold, grimy concrete.

She stayed like that for awhile, her legs to shaky to move, half expecting more of Fisk's goons to burst in and shoot her on the spot.

Three days.

She had three days.

What the hell had she gotten herself into this time?


	2. Chapter 2

Three days wasn't as inspiring of a time as she'd originally hoped.

Matt and Foggy were still not talking. It was worse than not talking; the two friends didn't even seem to want to stand in the same _room_. As much as they protested that it was a personal, that she had nothing to worry about, their issues were bleeding over into her own mind, mixing with the pre-existing chaos and stress and pounding it into a rotting stew.

Hiding out wasn't doing her much good either. The only place she really had to retreat to was her apartment, and if she disliked going home before, she positively _hated_ it now.

Twice now. Twice she'd been attacked, either on her doorstep or right inside. And that didn't include the time she'd been drugged and dumped next to her dead coworker, her fingers left to trail in a pool of his blood. She was starting to wonder if she should even bother to lock the door anymore or whether it'd just be easier to hang up a sign that said "Welcome to Let's All Break into Karen's Place FunTimes!"

Karen sighed.

She was currently sitting in the office and shuffling through various stacks of paperwork, making it _seem_ like she was doing something versus _actually_ doing anything. Foggy was there, holed up in the side room on his phone with… someone. Matt was… Matt was out doing only god-knew-what god-knew-where.

She picked up a stray pen and bounced it off a corner of her mouth.

Maybe she should buy a dog. A big dog. A big guard-type dog. Something like a German Shepherd. Or a Pit Bull. The mental image of it stretching out for a belly rub and then later sinking its teeth into a large portion of Wesley's leg made her lips quirk up.

Her cellphone rang.

Karen jumped, the pen tumbling out of her fingers. She snuck a glance at Foggy through the glass; he was still deep into his phone conversation.

He hadn't noticed her on edge. It was the one good thing about the guys' fallout. If they noticed, they'd inevitably try to help, and as much as she desperately wished for someone else to confide in, she ultimately knew their "help" would only serve to get all of them killed.

She didn't recognize the number calling. It had to be him. Or one of his lackeys. Tormenting her after only a single day of three because that's what they did.

She debated whether or not to leave the office to take the call. Or perhaps just ignore it completely. In the end, she figured Foggy wouldn't be able to hear a word and answered.

"Hello!" a warm, friendly female voice said, sounding more like a receptionist than a lackey of a mass murder.

Karen's heart hammered against her ribcage. Was this some kind of a trap?

"My name is Rachel from cardholder services," the voice continued. "We've taken a look at your credit score and you might be able to lower your interest rates with just a few easy steps! If you are interested in taking advantage of this exclusive offer, please press-"

Karen jammed her thumb into the end call button and practically chucked her phone against the table.

Fucking telemarketers.

After taking a good half-minute to calm her breathing, she picked her phone back up again.

She need to talk to… someone. Anyone. About something. She was going crazy, her head trapped in a lead-coated hamster cage. Karen scrolled through her contacts until she found one name in particular and pressed the call button.

After four rings he picked up.

"Hey," he said. It was a gruff response, and he clearly sounded as tired and worn out as she was, but there was also something mercifully solidifying about it. It reminded her there was still actually this strange… _thing_ called reality out there.

"Hey," Karen managed shakily.

"Look," Ben said with a sigh. "If this is about that story again, I told you-"

"No, it's not that!" she said quickly. "Well. It is, but…" Karen took a deep breath before the wrong words tumbled out of her mouth.

A part of her knew that it'd be more sensible to talk to either Matt or Foggy first. She'd never been the best liar and trying to pull one over on a grizzled reporter like Ben would be like cannonballing into the deep end of a community pool before she even knew how to doggy paddle… Which she might have actually done once. On a dare.

Good to know certain things never changed and she was still making the same goddamn mistakes twenty years later. Luckily, she had picked up one thing; the easiest way to get someone to swallow an idea was to feed them their own.

"You were right," Karen said with a sigh of her own. "We can't just rush into something like this. Fisk… as much as I hate saying it, he knows how to spin the media. If we don't have more proof like you said, he'll find a way to make himself look even better at the end of the day."

She heard a small chuckled on the other end of the line.

"Well, look at you," Ben said. "Finally picking up some long term strategy."

Karen smiled. "I learn from the best."

After that the conversation took a much more pleasant route. Karen ended up paying attention to only half of it. After the initial joyous rush of fellow human communication passed, she only felt worse.

All the shit blowing up around them right now. It was her fault.

It was her fault for pursuing the original Union Allied case. It was her fault for following up on it. It was her fault for coming up with a cock and bull story and feeding it to Ben because she'd known all along that he would've never agreed to go with her otherwise. Because he had common sense and she did not.

And now Ben's head was on the chopping block just like hers and everyone else she'd managed to drag into this hell hole and he didn't even know it! He was just innocently rambling on about picking up some flowers for his wife later and worrying if roses were too cliche.

"I think roses would be wonderful," Karen said. "She'll love them."

"Thanks," he said. "Hey listen, I gotta go. You need anything else, just call."

"I always do," Karen said with a smile.

After he hung up, Karen placed her phone back on her desk and buried her face in her hands.

Just call.

If only it was that simple. She needed lots of things. Well… At the very least one, very good, useful thing that could help her stall for even more time. She had no doubt that - despite their agreement of three days - Wesley would only keep her alive as long as she was useful. If she was to buy her life with information, it had to be constant and ever-changing. Something that only she could provide them.

Unfortunately, it was the kind of information she and Ben didn't have.

The only thing she could think of that would _possibly_ be interesting to Wesley were a couple minor incriminating paper trails. But she'd only been able to find them within some of Union Allied's subsidiaries, and they were nothing that'd lead back to Fisk himself. If she was lucky, they'd only buy her a couple extra days at most, and she'd be blasting away what little evidence against the corporation they had.

Apart from that, she had nothing. Their best leads were a handful of gut feelings and several pages of confessional hearsay from a masked vigilan…

Karen froze.

* * *

Their next meeting was not as terrifying as their previous one. That is, she wasn't drugged, kidnapped, and dragged to an abandoned warehouse in the middle of the night. "Not as terrifying" was a rather low bar when she thought about it that way.

It was a sunny morning, and she was making her way down a crowded street on her way into work.

"Miss Page!"

Karen turned and saw _him_ through the crowd. It'd be useless to run, so she crossed her arms and waited for him to approach. He stopped about a foot from her and clasped his hand behind his back.

"Mr. Wesley," she said through gritted teeth.

"What a pleasant morning," he said with a smile as he glanced up in the general direction of the sun. "Wouldn't you agree?"

Karen said nothing in response, simply continuing to glare at him.

"You might not have noticed with… whatever it is you do with your time, but your three days have passed."

"I know how to count."

"Lovely," he said. "I remember a promise that I wouldn't regret the wait. And you see, I have this _thing_ against people who break their promises. You, in particular, I'm afraid have not had the best track record."

Karen took a deep breath.

This was it. Either she was about to save all their skins or she was about to slice them open herself.

"I can get you the Devil of Hell's Kitchen," she said simply.

 _That_ got a response.

Both of his eyebrows raised, more shocked than skeptical for once. However the man quickly regained his composure. He coughed.

"Shall we take a walk, Miss Page?" he said, gesturing to the sidewalk before her.

"Do I have a choice?"

"You've always had a choice. It's not a fault of mine that all of yours have been the wrong ones."

"Well, that's all up to the person deciding the definition of 'wrong.'"

"So it is. But who truly has the right to decide it? You?"

"The law does. Something you and your kind forgot a long time ago."

Wesley simply smiled and started walking away. Karen sighed before reluctantly following him.

"Who is he?" Wesley asked when they reached the next intersection.

She assumed he was talking about the Devil.

"I don't know," she said truthfully.

"What information can you give us about him?"

"Nothing."

"'Nothing' is not a very promising answer, Miss Page."

"Look. I don't know who he is. Or what he does in his spare time or any of that. He just…" It'd be best to leave Ben's name out of this. "Shows up."

"To you?"

"Isn't that what I just said?"

"Why?"

That was a very good question. And one that she didn't have a great lie for just yet.

"Do we have a deal or not?" she asked.

"I'm still not exactly sure what this 'deal' is that you're proposing," Wesley said. "You say you have information on the man in the mask but refuse to divulge any of it. What's stopping me from simply torturing it out of you?"

Karen's eyes widened. She stared at him hoping from some improbable that he was joking, but the man's face was as aloof as always. It set the hair on the back of her neck on end.

The pedestrian light turned white and they let the throng of traffic carry them across the street.

"Nothing," she said. "But you also won't get anything either. I'm telling the truth. I don't know anything personally, but I can meet with him. If you torture me, kill me, kill any of my friends… then that's it. There goes your only lead." She paused, considering. "I wonder what your _employer_ would think if you let that happen."

"He would see it as a sad but inevitable loss."

They kept walking in silence for the next half block or so.

"You've given me something to consider," Wesley said, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "Which I admit is more than I expected."

He abruptly started walking back in the direction they'd came from.

"Hey! Wait!" she called out, despite wanting nothing more than to pretend the man never existed. He turned back around, his left eyebrow cocked in question. Karen bit her lip. "Now what?"

"We'll see, Miss Page."

* * *

"Miss Page."

"Jesus! Don't _do_ that!" Karen cried out. "How did you even-! Oh… I give up."

She was standing in line at one of the thousands of small convenience stores of the city, a single packet of Skittles clutched in her hands. Wesley hovered like a demonic hummingbird behind her. Her loud outburst attracted a couple glances from the other store patrons, but they quickly went back to their own business.

"My apologies," he said. "I felt it best to incorporate this meeting into your daily routine. I didn't want to keep you from anything."

Karen scowled at him, but the man ignored it. He pulled out a piece of folded paper from his suit's breast pocket.

"I simply wanted to give you this," he said with yet another smile. Men like him shouldn't have been allowed to smile so damn much.

Karen peered at the paper suspiciously before snatching it from his fingertips. She unfolded it slowly, conscious of his eyes on her. A date, time, and street address was handwritten inside. She glanced up at wesley.

"What it is?" she asked blankly.

"Get him to meet you there at that precise time and you will have yourself your 'deal.'"

Karen frowned. Doing quick mental calculation in her head, the date was next Saturday. The time, 1:30 in the morning. The place… She didn't even bother trying to draw up a mental map of the area. Images of desolate, garbage-laden, dark alleys streamed into her head.

"What if I can't contact him in time?" she said. If the Devil didn't contact Ben between now and then… If he refused to meet with her… "I mean, he's the one who comes to me. Not the other way around. And it's not like I have a batsignal or anything."

Wesley snorted in amusement.

"He shows up at that place at that time," he said, gesturing at the paper. "Or there is no deal."

Then he flipped open his wallet, thumbed briefly through it, and held out a crisp twenty dollar bill. Karen stared at it.

"What's that for?"

"Your snack," he said simply. "It's on me."

Karen felt her face burn crimson in sputtering rage. Her fists clenched and she could feel the packet of Skittles nearly burst beneath them. She shoved it into his face, pushing him back slightly as she did so.

"Eat them _yourself_ ," she spat before storming out of the store. She didn't look back to see if he did.


End file.
